Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
